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Dark Kitchens & The British Takeaway Revolution: What Is A 'Dark Kitchen'?
Dark Kitchens & The British Takeaway Revolution: What Is A 'Dark Kitchen'?
Dark Kitchens & The British Takeaway Revolution: What Is A 'Dark Kitchen'?
revolution
What are dark kitchens and how are they impacting the way we order
takeaways?
These companies don’t need physical premises for you to pick up from and have
surged in popularity throughout parts of the country, responding to the need for
contactless food delivery.
But how has the past year changed the types of food we’re ordering and the way that
companies are doing business?
To find out more, we used Deliveroo’s database of more than 50,000 restaurants to
see how the pandemic has affected the nation’s takeaway choices – and even the
business models that food delivery brands are using.
We also spoke to industry experts and restaurateurs from across the UK to find out
how the pandemic has affected their business and what their predictions are for the
coming months as lockdown lifts.
As we approach the end of the Covid lockdowns, there'll be a lot to reflect on.
In this report, we’ll celebrate the ingenuity of the hospitality industry and the rise of
the dark kitchen revolution in responding to changing consumer behaviours and
providing greater cuisine diversity than ever before.
Dark kitchens: a restaurant revolution?
‘Dark kitchen’ is one of the phrases used to describe the concept of setting up a
catering venue for the sole purpose of providing takeaways - as opposed to a
restaurant or other catering facility that would serve food to patrons.
Dark kitchens have grown markedly in number since 2020 - in part thanks to the
restrictions put in place by the UK government, preventing customers from eating
inside restaurants and cafes.
A spokesperson for Deliveroo tells us that there are now “14 sites in the UK and 30
sites worldwide, facilitating 220 kitchens”.
London’s nine locations including Islington and Whitechapel make up almost two-
thirds of these dark kitchens.
Many of the cloud kitchens outside of the capital have also been taking on more
brands.
The Editions sites in Manchester and Leeds nearly doubled in size during 2020, and
are set to grow even further as the two cities’ populations expand.
The chart below shows the areas in the UK where dark kitchens (or ‘ghost kitchens’)
have seen the biggest increase in number when we compare 2020 to 2021:
As shown here, the north of England has seen the greatest proportional growth, with
Leeds up 100% and Salford up just under 93%.
This allows budding restaurateurs to get a foot on the hospitality industry ladder -
increasing variety and driving cuisine diversity on our menus.
Milton Keynes saw the biggest rise in diverse takeaway options over the course of
the pandemic, with almost double the food choices now available - compared to the
start of 2020.
There was also a surge in options across the West Midlands, with Tamworth, Stoke-
on-Trent, Rugby and Birmingham all in the top 10 by percentage increase.
Across the UK, the number of delivery options was up on average by 45%, and only
one area – Wrexham in Wales – seeing a decrease in outlets serving takeaway food.
London’s outlets rose by 40%, with more than 21,000 different options now on offer.
With those numbers, you could order from a new place every night for 57 years!
The areas of the UK which saw the greatest percentage rise in takeaway food
options when comparing 2020 to 2021 were:
1. Milton Keynes
2. Scunthorpe
3. Wakefield
4. Tamworth
5. Stoke on Trent
6. Rugby
7. Bury St Edmunds
8. Haywards Heath
9. Birmingham
10. Inverness
Giles Moody is the business manager at Mighty Small, a platform to help food &
drink start-ups to reach consumers and he commented on the growth of his
business’ reach over lockdown:
The chart below shows the most common takeaway options by area:
Though the larger chain stores like Pizza Hut, Pizza Express and Franco Manca are
present in most cities, smaller independent restaurants have also seen growth as
consumers enjoy a wider range of cuisines.
The number of sandwich and health food vendors on Deliveroo shot up by 133% to
1,660 over the course of 2020, overtaking Chinese takeaways on the app (1,165)
and coming close to rivalling Indian food (1,663).
It’s also worth noting that the rise in the availability of healthy food via Deliveroo is
due in part to the likes of Subway and Pret a Manger.
Whilst it’s possible to order salads and other good-for-you foods from these major
chain restaurants, they don’t exclusively serve healthy fare so it’s important to take
their place in this category with a small pinch of salt.
Health food takeaways may be on the rise, but our data shows that they’ve got some
way to go before they knock pizza and fried chicken off the top spots.
From rising numbers of vendors in the West Midlands to the flourishing dark kitchen
phenomenon, there’s plenty to unpick here.
With restaurants required to close their doors to customers throughout large parts of
the year, many businesses have been forced to take their services online and offer
food deliveries in order to survive.
Certain parts of the country have seen particularly significant increases in the
number of takeaway outlets on offer since the pandemic began – providing more
choice for customers than ever before.
Milton Keynes took the top spot with a staggering 93% rise over the course of the
year, nearly doubling from 132 to 255 takeaways during this time.
The West Midlands was also a hub of food delivery expansion: Tamworth, Stoke-on-
Trent, Rugby and Birmingham all made it into the top 10 for percentage increase in
takeaways on Deliveroo, with each of these locations seeing more than a 79% rise in
the number of outlets available.
But what does all of this mean for these areas now and in the future?
Of course, one key upshot is that there’s now more power to the local consumers.
In 2021, residents living in the hometown of MK Dons have access to 255 different
eateries via the app, spanning a wide range of cuisines from staples like Chinese
and Indian through to more niche options such as Cuban and Portugese food.
The flipside for restaurants in places like Milton Keynes is that competition is growing
– and is likely to continue doing so in the future.
As food delivery apps become inundated with new offerings, we’d expect to see
outlets going to increasing lengths to attract custom.
Vendors using Deliveroo’s Editions sites in Leeds and Salford increased by 100%
and 93% respectively, with a total of 59 dark kitchen vendors between them as of
March 2021.
Discussing the success of cloud kitchens under the Editions scheme, Deliveroo’s
spokesperson commented:
“We have seen a 70% increase in average order volume per Edition kitchen since
March 2020, demonstrating the vital role Editions have played to support restaurant
partners during the COVID-19 crisis.”
This touches on a key feature of app-owned dark kitchens – as well as providing
another revenue stream for food delivery apps like Deliveroo, these establishments
offer an option for businesses to trade even if they can’t afford the expense of
physical premises.
Particularly in difficult times like these, virtual kitchen schemes are offering a helping
hand to up-and-coming brands.
Despite the clear increase (12.3%) in dark kitchens we should keep things in
perspective. It’s worth noting that locations such as Reading and Dulwich saw
notable decreases.
Moreover, of the 50,590 locations on Deliveroo across Britain right now, just 402 of
them are delivery-only services operating from Editions sites (less than 1%).
And this takes into account only one of the food delivery apps.
The idea that cloud kitchens will undercut the takeaway market in the near future
looks a little less likely when we consider the movements made by other players in
the food delivery space.
Uber Eats – Deliveroo’s closest competitor – abandoned its plans for a ghost kitchen
empire last year, with boss Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty stating that the company had
“no intention at this stage to start [its] own proprietary network of dark kitchens''.
Wrapping up
The last year of lockdowns and temporary restaurant closures has dramatically
altered Britain’s takeaway landscape, leading to a 45% rise in the number of UK food
outlets on Deliveroo overall.
By digging deeper into the data, we’ve uncovered a whole host of other interesting
findings:
As locations begin to open up in the coming months we will be keeping an eye out
on new independent restaurants and dark kitchens to see how they can maintain
momentum in the coming months and years!
All data on dark kitchens came from Deliveroo’s website via a site search.